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Fenway Park cost less than $1 million to build, in 1912, and the park had no trouble drawing fans. The Red Sox' current ownership have bet nearly $300 million that Fenway a century later can draw bigger crowds, and more well-heeled.

It cost all of $650,000 to build Fenway Park back in 1912. The renovations made in just the last 10 years by the present Red Sox ownership have totaled nearly $285 million – about 19 times the purchase price, adjusted to 2012 dollars.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Boston Red Sox, under the former, Yawkey family ownership, talked about building a new ballpark. But almost immediately after the new Red Sox ownership group was approved in 2002, prospective club president Larry Lucchino vowed to preserve the old ballpark.

In order to make Major League Baseball's smallest venue economically viable, Red Sox owners have added seats, premium seats and sponsored areas, expanded concession and merchandising stands and the team store, and added to concourses. Other improvements in the 10-year plan have included: new bathroomas, enhancements to menus at concession stands and new and larger TV sets at the concession stands.

Highlighting the three new high definition video display and scoring systems at Fenway is the largest screen, measuring approximately 38 feet high by 100 feet wide strategically positioned above the center field bleachers. The new screen has the ability to provide approximately 3,800 square feet of dynamic video capabilities in a variety of formats. The new screen replaced the old scoreboard structure that was originally constructed prior to the 1976 season.

For all its uniqueness and quirky features, Fenway Park remains the pride of Boston and has earned a listing on the National register of Historic Places. And on Friday, April 9th when the Red Sox host the Tampa Bay Rays in the long-awaited home opener, the major league’s oldest ballpark will celebrate its 100th birthday in style. No other major league stadium has ever had a celebration for lasting a century.

Lucchino couldn't be reached for comment in this story, but that may not be necessary, when others have already spoken so eloquently on the subject. “Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg." John Updike wrote in the New Yorker magazine on, October 22, 1960. "It was built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1934, and offers, as do most Boston artifacts, a compromise between Man’s Euclidean determinations and Nature’s beguiling irregularities.” The Updike piece was a tribute to Ted Williams’ final game, entitled “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu."

Correction

An earlier version of this story misstated the year in which John Updike's Fenway Park article was published. It was published in 1960.

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